In one corner: The recently legendary Martensdale-St. Marys, owner of an 86-game win streak and defending champion.
In the other corner, and I do mean corner: The long-time legendary Kee High, a couple of fastballs away from both the Minnesota and Wisconsin borders.
The matchup is, in a way, an uncommon final for Class 1A. This is the 20th anniversary of Norway’s last state title. Since then, 19 out of 40 teams in the final have been private schools, and 21 have been public. A full third of those 21 slots belong to Kee High.
This is only the third final between public schools in the post-Norway era. The other two were North Kossuth over Kee in 1996, and Lenox over Sentral of Fenton in 2006. Since then, North Kossuth and Sentral have gone into program sharing not once but twice, joining together for sports in 2007-08 as North Sentral Kossuth and then adding Armstrong-Ringsted to the mix starting this spring. (Kossuth County, by the way, is where other historic baseball power Bancroft St. John used to be until it closed in 1989.)
Since the division of summer baseball into classes in 1973, the 2006 championship is the only one that did NOT involve two of the following three: Norway, Kee High, and a private school.
EDIT: Full championship history here.
EDIT: MSM 8, Kee High 3.